Santa Cruz County History - People

3. Thomas Majors, "The Majors Family and Santa Cruz County Dairying." Transcript of an interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano in 1967. (University of California, Santa Cruz, McHenry Library, Special Collections.) "The Cowells were friendly to a certain extent, to some people they knew, but otherwise they were kind of distant, you know, and reserved. They picked friends, but not too many."

4. This is not only evident from the scanty record. Frank Blaisdell, in an interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano, said: "The Cowells were opposed to having pictures taken or anything recorded about them. They weren't friendly, you know, they weren't what you would call mixers." Frank Blaisdell, "Santa Cruz in the Early 1900s." Transcript of interview conducted in 1967. (University of California, Santa
Cruz, McHenry Library, Special Collections.)

7. The San Francisco City Directory for 1852-3 states, "Some idea of the rapid march of the country in those times may be formed from the fact that on a single day, the first of July [1848], there arrived 17 vessels, with 889 passengers."

9. All information about the Cowell ancestry is found in an unpublished study by Roger Barnes, "The Cowells of Wrentham, Massachusetts." (Carmel, California, 1972.)

10. The Great Register of Santa Cruz County, 1875.

11. The San Francisco Directory for 1852 gives a listing for John Cowell and Company, merchants, at 157 Sansome Street. Again, Henry is not listed by name. The 1854 Directory lists Henry for the first time, and notes that he boards at 147 Sansome, just down the street from John. (Their cousin, Benjamin Cowell, Jr. is listed as living at 130 California Street, also nearby.) By 1856, the business is listed as follows: "Cowell's Warehouse, John Cowell, proprietor, located at the corner of Battery and Union Streets.
Building and Wharf erected in 1853." Henry Cowell, agent, is listed at Union on Telegraph Hill, and he is listed again, at 155 Sansome, the same address given for John, although it is not clear whether this is an office or residence. By 1858, however, things have altered dramatically. John is not listed, nor is Cowell's Warehouse. Now the listing reads "Henry Cowell, storage and commission, corner Union and Battery, office 155 Sansome." His residence is given as Union near Montgomery Street.

12. San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing October, 1856.

13. Letter in the files of the S. H. Cowell Foundation office.

14. San Francisco Alta, December 2, 1854. Who's Who in California 1928-1929 gives the date of the marriage as 1851. This is almost certainly incorrect.

16. Isabella's death certificate, on file at the S. H. Cowell Foundation office, gives Oakland as her place of birth. Other sources suggest different places around the Bay Area that the family might have been living at the time: Roland's burial place and a listing for Henry Cowell's business in San Francisco are inconclusive; yet other sources, cited in Debra Morstein's "Remembrance of Pogonip's Past," refer to the family living on a ranch in San Rafael, which was rumored to be the first of what were to be Henry's extensive land holdings.

21. Indeed, the letter from Benjamin Cowell quoted above, dated May 7, 1851, vividly describes but one of these fires: "It was awful and terrific, beyond description, never has this continent witnessed such a scene, over one thousand houses enveloped in flames at once, a perfect sea of fire."

22. In 1882, John Hittel wrote of the Santa Cruz limerock: "The rock is a mountain limestone, containing a large percentage of carbonate of lime, and yielding, when well calcinated, a material excellent for the purpose of the mason and plasterer."

23. A contemporary painting of Cowell's Wharf in San Francisco, based on an old photograph, hangs in the office of the S. H. Cowell Foundation.

24. It is known that John returned to Wrentham at some point during this period, purportedly because of ill health. (Roger Barnes, "The Cowells of Wrentham.") The details of what actually happened cannot be reconstructed, and the only source, the San Francisco Directory, raises more questions than it answers. After John's name disappears from the Directory for 1858 and 1859, in 1860 John Cowell is listed as a boarder at the Tremont House. Is this the same John Cowell? And is it the same J. G. Cowell who is listed in 1863 as a clerk with the Davis and Jordan Company which Henry would join as co-owner within two years? The matter is not cleared up by the 1865 Directory, which lists Henry Cowell, of Davis and Cowell Company at the corner of Sansome and Jackson (the same address given in 1850 for John Cowell, merchant), and J. G. Cowell, accountant with Davis and Cowell. Unsubstantiated sources suggest John was the original contact with Jordan and Davis (notes by Elizabeth Calciano in the Cowell file in Special Collections at McHenry Library at the University of California at Santa Cruz).
This lends credence to the suspicion that it was, indeed, John who was initially employed by Jordan and Davis after leaving the drayage business in Henry's hands.

25. Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 15, 1865.

26. The date the Cowells left Santa Cruz to move back to San Francisco is given in most sources as 1897. This date is substantiated by George H. Cardiff, long-time manager of the Cowell Ranch. The possible source of confusion about this issue is a newspaper article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel News on
November 8, 1953, which gives the date as 1879. It seems possible, even probable, that this is a simple typographical
error.

27. The San Francisco Directory after 1865 continues to list Davis and Cowell as having offices in San Francisco, specializing in "Santa Cruz Lime." This is further substantiated by the contemporary painting of Cowell's Wharf in San Francisco that hangs in the office of the S. H. Cowell Foundation. It is based on a photograph with the date of 1866.

28. The farmhouse and many of the ranch's historic outbuildings still exist today as part of the University of California's Santa Cruz campus, which was purchased from the S. H. Cowell Foundation for a modest sum in 1961.

29. Very complete descriptions of the various operations are provided by George H. Cardiff in his interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

31. That incline, then called Lime Kiln Road, is the present-day Bay Street. The warehouse occupied the site of the present-day Dream Inn. The company wharf was in active service until the railroad came to Santa Cruz in 1876 (Leon Rowland). Thereafter, the wharf was neglected for many years, and finally broke up in a storm on December 31, 1907.

39. The source of this information is an appraisal of S. H. Cowell Foundation properties dated February 2, 1955.

40. This is supported by George Cardiff, who said Cowell bought land in pieces, "because he was always picking up all the limerock he could."

41. Newspaper articles in Special Collections at the University of California at Santa Cruz give the final grades for the Cowell children for the years, 1876, 1877, and, 1878. All were consistently in the 90s. Bay View school still exists, although it no longer occupies the same building as when the Cowell children attended.

42. McHugh Scrapbooks, Volume I.

43. Interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano. The observation is supported by Ernest Otto, who agreed that the Cowell girls were very pretty, and added that they attracted the attention of "many of the gay blades in town," but that Henry forbid any of them to pay calls on his daughters. (McHugh Scrapbooks.)

44. Interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

45. McHugh Scrapbooks.

46. Ernest Otto describes this as a sight he witnessed repeatedly as a boy. Other sources refer to it as well, possibly using him as an unidentified source.

47. Interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

48. George Cardiff, and Adalbert Wolff, in particular.

49. Master Hands in the Affairs of the Pacific Coast. (1892).

50. San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 1903. "D. Leigh Ingalsbe is said to be insane as a result of a boundary line dispute dating back for several years, during all of which time bad blood had existed between Henry Cowell and the Ingalsbes."

51. San Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 1903. "Miss Cowell was found lying face downward on a pile of rocks. Tenderly she was carried to a place near a tree, the men doing all they
could to restore her. She died an hour later." The Chronicle gives as the cause of death a fractured skull and broken neck.

52. Sarah's will specified that her estate be divided equally between her sisters, Isabella and Helen, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 1904.

53. San Francisco Call, August 5, 1903.

54. San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 1903.

55. Santa Cruz Surf, April 26, 1906.

56. Santa Cruz Surf, December 19, 1906.

57. Portland cement (so-named because it has the same color as the natural stone quarried on the Isle of Portland, a peninsula on the south coast of Great Britain), was invented in 1821. As a cement mixture, it was superior to natural cement. However, the first portland cement factory in America was not established until 1871, in Pennsylvania. At first portland cement manufacturers developed their own formulas. In 1898, manufacturers used 91 different formulas. Not until 1917 did the U.S. Bureau of Standards establish a standard formula for the manufacture of portland cement. (World Book Encyclopedia, 1988.)

58. San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 1911.

59. San Francisco Chronicle, June 28, 1912. The list of expenses Mrs. Cowell provided for the court sheds light on her lifestyle: $450 per month for rent at the Fairmont; $100 per month for the services of a nurse; $10 per day for her own meals; $5 per day for the nurse's meals; $600 per month for her
automobile; $250 per month for doctor's bills.

60. San Francisco Chronicle, March 18, 1911.

61. San Francisco Chronicle, February 7, 1915.

62. San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 1817.

63. All details about the will are listed in the San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 1911. Details about subsequent suits are found in San Francisco Chronicle articles dating
from 1911 to 1917.

64. George Cardiff interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

65. San Francisco Chronicle, December 2, 1930. A news article states that 15 buffalo arrived in Santa Cruz by special car, from Gardiner, Montana, at the entrance to Yellowstone. They were turned loose to range in a 60-acre paddock on the Ranch.

66. Josephine McCrackin, "The Home Ranch of the Cowells," Overland Monthly, July, 1912.

67. Conceivably, this was on or near the date of July 3, 1928, when the Sacramento Bee notes S. H. had two winners, Crawford, the champion trotter of the Pacific Coast and Bobby O, champion pacer of California.

68. George Cardiff interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

69. Ibid.

70. Santa Cruz Sentinel News, November 8, 1953.

71. George Cardiff interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

72. Adalbert Wolff interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano.

73. George Cardiff interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano. He is referring to the fact that S. H. continued to provide room and board for Cowell Ranch employees long after the production of lime had stopped there. In fact, these workers were provided for until their deaths.

74. San Francisco Chronicle, October 1, 1919. The headline reads "Society Girl Sued for Auto Accident." She was 53 at the time.

75. San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 1930.

76. Records on file in the office of the S. H. Cowell Foundation in San Francisco.

77. San Francisco Examiner, May 9, 1948.

78. Records on file in the office of the S. H. Cowell Foundation in San Francisco.

79. The bequest was insufficient for the purpose, but with the help of a $1,500,000 grant from the S. H. Cowell Foundation several years later, it became the Helen Cowell Children's Center of the Sacramento Children's Home. The Center is a 20-bed residential facility for emotionally disturbed children.

80. San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 1950.

81. San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 1955.

82. San Francisco Chronicle, April 19, 1951.

83. According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel News, November 8, 1953, S. H. proposed to turn over 1,612 acres of his land in San Lorenzo Valley to the state for a park if the county would add the Big Trees property which had previously been donated to the county by its owner, Joseph Warren Welch.

84. The same article notes that, according to S. H., it was the wish of his father, Henry Cowell, "to see such a park be set aside for public use."

85. California State Parks brochure.

86. San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 1955.

Research Bibliography:

Quotations from the following volumes are used with the permission of the University Librarian, University of California,
Santa Cruz, according to agreements between the interviewees and the Regents of the University of California:

"The Cowell Ranch Cookhouse." Transcript of interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano
conducted in 1965. University of California, Santa Cruz, McHenry Library Special Collections.

Elliot, A. W.

"Cowell Scholars; A History of the E. V. Cowell Scholarship Fund, 1907-1963." Questionnaires completed by graduates of Santa Cruz High School who were recipients of scholarships, with photocopies of letters.

"The Majors Family and Santa Cruz County Dairying." Transcript of interview conducted by Elizabeth Spedding Calciano in 1967. University of California, Santa Cruz, McHenry Library, Special Collections.

"Rowland Scrapbooks," containing "News and Notes from the Santa Cruz Historical Society," written by Leon Rowland, Secretary of the organization and sometime news reporter. Scrapbook contains articles dated from 1937-1952. University of California, Santa Cruz, McHenry Library, Special Collections.

San Francisco Directory, 1850 through 1869.

California Historical Society, and the San Francisco Public Library, Publications Room.

Wagner, Fred.

"Blacksmithing and Life in the Santa Cruz Area, 1890-1930." Transcript of interview with Elizabeth Spedding Calciano conducted in 1967. University of California, Santa Cruz, McHenry Library, Special Collections.

Whiting, Russ.

"Patriarchy of the Cowells." Berkeley Daily Gazette/The Independent, February 1, 1969. University of California, Santa Cruz, McHenry Library, Special Collections.

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